[Koha-devel] Re: Is MARC support in Koha only partial?

[Ambrose LI <acli@ada.dhs.org> via forwarder]

Hi,

AFAIK, Koha's MARC support is partial in the following senses:

1. Fixed width tags (MARC21 00x tags) are not supported in a
   usable way. (You can enter the tags, but you can't manipulate
   the "subfields" [actually character positions] in any
   meaningful way.)

2. Repeatable subfields are not currently supported (Bug 731)

3. The ordering of certain subfields are significant (e.g.,
   MARC21's 6xx v, w, x, y, z subfields), but Koha does not
   currently support user-specified ordering of subfields.
   (Bug 732)

I can only speak as someone with minimal training as a "library
volunteer", but as I understand it, my library's librarian
regards #2 and #3 as being rather important (at least with
regards to his perception of the quality of the MARC support).



In article <1083586598.4567.11.camel at localhost.localdomain>,
Benedykt P. Barszcz <kb2qzv at poczta.wp.pl> wrote:
>Hi list,
>I just saw the following web page:
>http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/ecbdlist.html
>
>... and I am thinking to myself that perhaps Koha doesn't support all
>the fields, subfields and indicators that are present in MARC21.
>I base my assumption on the fact that marc_tag_structure and
>marc_subfield_structure tables do not have them all there.
[stuff deleted]
-- 
Ambrose LI Cheuk-Wing  <a.c.li at ieee.org>

http://ada.dhs.org/~acli/